The reaction to the Senate Intelligence Committee's "Study of the CIA's Detention and Interrogation Program" is as significant as what the study uncovered about the psychology and methods of those who run the Deep State that rules us.

~snip~

The present writer will take as a given the veracity of its three main findings: that the United States engaged in practices both legally and commonly definable as torture; that the actionable intelligence these practices produced was negligible; and that the practices tainted the moral prestige of the United States government in a manner that damaged its foreign policy. These assertions may be taken as true both because of the abundant evidence presented in the report itself and because of the flailing and hysterical reaction by our country's national security elites.

"Hysteria" does not arise from groundless causes, but from a guilty and conflicted id seeking to displace blame from itself onto others. The reaction to the senate study is as significant as the facts that the study uncovered in providing a window on the psychology and methods of those who run the Deep State - the hybrid association of key elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States with limited reference only to the consent of the governed as it is normally expressed through the formal political process. This essay will discuss some of the implications of that reaction.

President Obama is an operative of the Deep State, but it is unclear whether he is its master or its prisoner. The president's role in this affair has been extremely puzzling. On March 11, 2014, when the torture issue blew up in the senate because of Intelligence Committee chair Diane Feinstein's allegations of CIA spying on her committee's staff members, she said that the White House had been supportive of her committee's probe of CIA activities. That may have been true, but that is still only what she said she believed. It is hardly beyond the realm of plausibility that the president or one of his aides told her that the White House was supportive of her committee's investigation while at the same time tolerating, or even encouraging, CIA obstruction. But suppose the president did support the committee's probe? That would imply that the White House does not really control the CIA. In either case, whether from obstruction or lack of control, the implications of the CIA's spying on Congress merited Senator Feinstein's description of it as a constitutional crisis.

Obama showed a similar split personality nine months later when the report was finally released. The president, and his White House press secretary, insisted that he was in favor of the public seeing the study (or at least the redacted summary of it). Yet on the Friday before its release, John Kerry, the most senior cabinet official in the government, called Senator Feinstein and urged her not to disclose it, saying "Lots of things going on in the world; not a good time for disclosure."

For the Deep State, attack is the preferred form of defense. National security elites have been preparing a vigorous counterattack for months. Because of the seriousness of the crimes in which CIA officers may have been implicated, chairwoman Feinstein reluctantly agreed to the CIA's request that some of the current and former CIA officers mentioned in the senate report should have the opportunity to read it prior to its release. This was an unusual concession, since subjects of congressional investigations are not normally made privy to the contents of a report before the public finds out, but it is not a completely unreasonable request given the gravity of the allegations against these individuals. ... The CIA's strategy was crystal clear: Its request to the senate was less about keeping faith with its dutiful foot soldiers than about priming its former big-shots with an advance look at the report so that they could go on an immediate public relations counteroffensive against the document on the day it was publicly released.

An anonymous editor at 156.33.241.11 -- registered to the US Senate -- has repeatedly attempted to scrub the word "torture" from the Wikipedia entry from Senate Intelligence Committee report on CIA torture.

Attempts on Dec 9 and Dec 10 to remove references to "torture" were reverted by other Wikipedians. These edits -- and others -- can be read by following @congressedits, a twitterbot that tweets new Wikipedia edits from IPs registered to the US Congress (previously).

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” on Sunday, former Vice-President Dick Cheney told host Chuck Todd that he was “sick and tired of Americans being ashamed of our beautiful legacy of torture” and that he was organizing the first “National Torture-Pride March” to take place in Washington in January.

“This is a chance for all of us torturers to say, ‘Look at us, this is who we are,’” Cheney, who will be the Grand Marshall of the parade, said.

The former Vice-President said that he was organizing the march to inspire “the millions of American kids who want to be torturers when they grow up but are afraid they’ll catch hell for it.”

“We’ll be there to say, ‘We’re torturers and we’re damn proud of it—join us,’” Cheney said.

The release of the two reports – by a U.S. Senate committee on the CIA’s interrogation tactics, and also the systematic human rights violations in Brazil as revealed in a report by the country’s National Truth Commission – also coincided with Human Rights Day, which the United Nations commemorates annually on Dec. 10.

“Strange coincidence indeed,” Vijay Prashad, professor of international studies at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut, told IPS. He said the report by the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee shows they were well aware the revelations “stink”.

“There is a very telling section where they say that then U.S. Secretary of State] Colin Powell must not be informed, because if he is, he would blow his stack,” said Prashad, who has written extensively on international politics and is the author of 15 books. “They knew they were outside the lines, they concealed it from their own people, and yet no one will be held accountable,” he added.

Responding to the two reports, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Raad Al Hussein, urged the U.N.’s 193 member states to act unequivocally in their effort to stamp out torture. He said the U.S. report shows torture is still taking place in quite a few of the 156 countries that have ratified the Convention and have domestic legislation making torture illegal.

“To have it so clearly confirmed that it was recently practised as a matter of policy by a country such as the United States is a very stark reminder that we need to do far, far more to stamp it out everywhere,” he continued.

David Hooks was shot in the back and head as he was lying face down on the floor during a drug raid by Laurens County deputies. That's according to the lawyer representing his family. It's been nearly four months since David Hooks was shot to death during a drug raid at his East Dublin home.

As it turns out, David Hooks was apparently face-down on the ground when he was murdered by the police, who were conducting what is known as a "no-knock raid". This is when the police are allowed to enter a person's home without the homeowner or primary occupant's permission.

~snip~

All it takes is a combination of an over-eager police unit + a bogus tip. This is doubly so when you have the ever increasingly popular Swatting pranks occurring with ever increasing frequency.

Moments like these unfortunately don't come too often, not for me. Moments
where I actually feel proud of my government, where my elected leaders
double-down on truth-telling and doing the right thing.

The development and release of the US Senate's 90% redacted Torture Report
is the most significant single step towards transparency and accountability that
I've seen in quite awhile.

Also, I'm cautiously confident that the other 90% will eventually find it's way
into the light of day. Too many eyes have seen it already for it to go otherwise,
hopefully.

Whether or not Bush & Cheney actually end up facing a war crime trial remains to
be seen, but at least we now know for sure, what we already suspected: we not
only "tortured some folks" but we did it with a vengeance, we did it to totally
innocent people who we KNEW were innocent, "in order to prove their innocence",
just like witch Trials by Ordeal in the Dark Ages.

I for one am grateful to know the gory details, because I feel we need to know
how bad is was, in order to put a permanent stop to war crimes by our government.

Thank you Diane Feinstein. Thank you Mark Udall. And thank you to the other
Senators on the Intel Committee who supported the Torture Report's release.

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Former Vice-President Dick Cheney on Tuesday called upon the nations of the world to “once and for all ban the despicable and heinous practice of publishing torture reports.”

“Like many Americans, I was shocked and disgusted by the Senate Intelligence Committee’s publication of a torture report today,” Cheney said in a prepared statement. “The transparency and honesty found in this report represent a gross violation of our nation’s values.”

“The publication of torture reports is a crime against all of us,” he added. “Not just those of us who have tortured in the past, but every one of us who might want to torture in the future.”

Saying that the Senate’s “horrifying publication” had inspired him to act, he vowed, “As long as I have air to breathe, I will do everything in my power to wipe out the scourge of torture reports from the face of the Earth.”